Death and Declarations
by misanoe
Summary: Webb's reflections in the hospital after "A Tangled Webb" You can also reach this fic on jag.insanemackerel.com
1. Default Chapter

Title: Death and Declarations  
  
Author: misanoe  
  
Rating: pg  
  
Spoilers: A Tangled Webb  
  
Disclaimer: JAG belongs to Donald P. Bellisario and others.  
  
Summary: A really short stand alone story after "A Tangled Webb" to keep me writing while I suffer from writer's block. Never fear, I am still working (or at least trying to) on Rerouted.  
  
***  
  
He had been so sure he was going to die.  
  
Death had him in its palm and help was too far away to stave off the lethal cold from seeping into his body.  
  
With that said, how was he supposed to know he was going to wake up a week later in mind numbing pain at some fly infested makeshift hospital, alarmingly still very much alive.  
  
After he had been drugged up for several days drifting in and out of consciousness, the pain began to recede into the back of his mind and he had empty time to lay there and scrutinize each agonizing detail of his "confession".  
  
If this was life's way of playing a joke on him, he was not amused.  
  
He was supposed to be dead.  
  
Had he known he was going to survive, that there was even a chance of recovery, he was sure he would not have laid there pathetic as he invited her pity. Not for the first time in the past few days, he cringed as his words replayed in his head.  
  
"I need you."  
  
Just because he felt something didn't mean he had to share it with the world. He mentally sighed once more, shifting uncomfortably in his canvass cot to settle the nausea rising up in his stomach. Was it really necessary to tell her you used her toothbrush, he asked himself, wondering why his carefully constructed diffidence had deserted him at that moment. He could only think of one explanation.  
  
He thought he was going to die.  
  
He could still feel the texture of her toothbrush on his tongue. He had felt a little juvenile standing there in the wee hours of early dawn wearing only his boxers to contemplate her toothbrush.  
  
It was almost sad, he was willing to admit, how tempted he had been to brush his own teeth with her toothbrush. Her toothbrush- belonging to her and not him. Of course that only served as a reminder that it had previously occupied her mouth, much farther than he would ever get with Sarah MacKenzie. And for that moment, he was strangely envious of a plastic stick with a bristle brush. He wasn't just sad. He was completely sure he had crossed over into the realm of pathetic, scoring up there between the peeping toms and panty raiding perverts.  
  
He might as well have told her he had lately been exhibiting alarming stalker tendencies.  
  
He had been able to remain wordless through each session with the car battery, yet somehow, one look in her liquid brown eyes and he started babbling about feelings, beds and let's not forget, toothbrushes. Now that he was onto the road of recovery he wondered if he could claim the constant haze of pain was more effective then a truth serum. The threat of passing through this life without her ever knowing how he felt was an option he apparently could not see through.  
  
And of course, he reminded himself, he was supposed to die  
  
The kiss had been nice. Unexpected, but nice.  
  
He didn't know if she did it to shut him up or she thought she was giving a dying man some consolation, but it hadn't changed the feeling of her lips on his. And if it took that declaration of his affections and his brush with death to get her to kiss him, he knew deep down that he would say it all over again.  
  
Even the toothbrush comment.  
  
Closing his eyes a slight smile rested on his face as he thought of Sarah. Who knows why she did it but she had, and the memory, now that the chances of him living a scandalously long life were secure, was one he would never forget.  
  
He could feel the warmth of her lips on his, the tantalizing scent of freshly washed hair overwhelming his senses.  
  
"Clay?"  
  
Webb's eyes flew open to the welcoming sight of Sarah MacKenzie hovering over him. Battered and bruised, her eyes were bright, a relieved smile lighting up her face as she gently traced his bottom lip with a single finger.  
  
He had never seen her look so good.  
  
Before he could form the word how, she cupped his face with both palms and silenced him with a kiss filled with elation- and something more. Promise.  
  
A fleeting thought ran through his mind before the kiss deepened and all intelligent thoughts were tossed out of his head. Never had he been so thankful to not be dead. 


	2. Part B

***  
  
He told her he had handled worse; that was an outright lie. While on several lively occasions he had been interrogated, injured and seriously beaten, nothing could compete with the level of brutal pain his body was tirelessly being subjugated to. This was the kind of mind numbing agony that made a person want to crawl in the fetal position and die. After the first run through with the car battery their captors had so assiduously zapped him with, Webb found himself seriously re-evaluating his life. There was nothing like a few volts of electricity running through the body to jump-start the brain. It was here in his somewhat lacking accommodations as they dragged him to the room holding Sarah, he was finally able to be entirely truthful to himself. He was ridiculously in love with Sarah. He knew it was love when his thoughts were plagued with half assed plans to keep Sarah safe as his body was tested beyond endurance. He knew it was ridiculous when he found himself inordinately happy to rest his head on her lap, her hands soothing the hurt away like a much prayed for sedative. It was straight out of a damn movie. Her long slim fingers stroking his forehead as she whispered words of endearment into his ear, filling his heart with an indescribable joy. Right. Except for the little scenario that had them in the custody of terrorists hell bent on zapping him until they got an intelligible answer to whether or not their mission to pepper the air with stinger missiles had been compromised. Very romantic. Next time he'd take her to Cuba and get them kidnapped by drug lords. This whole damn mission had been so abhorrently unprofessional. Before he had been able to overlook his pitifully weak excuse for recruiting Sarah- there was a mole, he needed someone he could trust. He trusted Colonel MacKenzie, wonder woman extraordinaire. Right? Wrong. Since he seemed to have live in denial for so long, he wasn't exactly sure which moment marked his fall into Sarah MacKenzie's fan-club. He must have loved her for years judging from the force of his feelings attacking him so vigorously now that the gates of denial were nudged open. Now that he knew he was in love with Sarah, he could see his underlying reasons for getting her involved in his mission and it had little to do with the lack of qualified female field agents. He could name five off the top of his head that he trusted to do the job. How did he convince any one to clear her for this mission? How did he convince himself? Somewhere between A.J.'s office and Langley, the Colonel became Sarah and he was coveting every opportunity to touch her. Let me put that on for you, come this way, one bed we must share- his actions were becoming downright unprofessional and rapidly they only spiraled down. What a mess he had gotten them into. Yet through it all she managed to keep her head, filling the painful silence with light hearted conversation that managed to spring enough hope in him to fight the darkness threatening to engulf him. Had he been alone, it is unlikely he would have held on for so long. Then again, had he been alone, Harm wouldn't have ripped off his gold wings on hearing of Webb's disappearance to blindly charge in and save him. No, Webb was fairly sure that was a service rendered only to Sarah and every other helpless blonde female in the western hemisphere. And Harm rode up on his white horse not a moment too soon. Bile rose in his throat as he remembered the coldness of the cement floor seeping into his cheek after they led her away. He wanted to die then, loose consciousness and forget he ever brought her to this hellhole to suffer and die. That was the straw that broke the camel's back. If Sadiq chose that moment to walk through the door, Webb would have told him anything he wanted to know to keep from hearing her screams. "Hey, how are you holding up?" asked a voice from the door, interrupting Webb's dark thoughts. "Peachy," Webb replied, his voice hoarse from disuse. "How are things on the home front?" "Well a couple of the guys back at the company are impressed at the way you handled yourself out there," started Ted, a stocky middle-aged man that occupied the office across from Webb's. "Is that so," answered Webb, his throat scratchy. Slowly his hand inched out for the cup on the small portable dinner table next to his bed. "Damn it," he cursed, the frustration evident in his irritated voice. His stiff hand had been unable to hold onto the yellow plastic cup and it tumbled from his hand onto the floor, ice chips splattering against bland tiles. "Can't even hold a damn cup," he mumbled under his breath. Ted wordlessly picked up the cup and tossed it into a small garbage bin, grabbing another cup off the counter and filling it with ice chips. He handed it to Webb and continued the conversation without skipping a beat. "Yeah, sure. It was impressive, and stupid," he added, waving a hand in the air to dismiss their comments. "What I'd like to know is how much of Edward's liquor made you think you could single handedly take on a small army of armed terrorists." "I wasn't alone," muttered Webb. "That's right, you had a lawyer with you, didn't you." He sighed, "Jesus Webb, it was a crazy thing you did. I've known too many men who died from less." Webb stared blankly at the closed mini blinds covering the small window. The light hurt his eyes and most days he spent his time in the dark, trying not to think about his hellish month. He could still see her standing in front of him, eyes glittering with anger as she took his gun. "She would have gone alone," said Webb in the empty silence. Ted had the decency to look away. There was nothing he could say that Webb didn't already know. Ted knew enough of the facts of Webb's mission to make an educated guess of the predicament that cornered Webb. Who knew what he would have done in Webb's situation? "Count your blessings Webb, I don't know how you did it, but you're both still alive." "I did nothing," said Webb, voice bitter. "You didn't let her go alone," Ted pointed out. "That's got to count for something." There was no response from Webb. Ted glanced at his watch, hating the schedule that forced him to leave Webb in this condition. "I've got to go and clean up your mess," he was half-serious. About to leave, he briefly placed a hand on Webb's arm, "Hey, you did all you could, that matters." "I got her involved for all the wrong reasons," said Webb, voicing what truly disturbed him. "Look, the company isn't some day care program run by an idiot. To get the green light from above, somewhere or somehow you must have made a somewhat convincing argument that someone up there agreed with, whatever your private reasons were." Ted hoped that would help ease Webb's inner demons. Hell, they both knew Webb had made some big mistakes, but he'd suffered enough. And even Ted knew the biggest control freaks couldn't dictate every facet of their lives. Ted worked with Webb for enough years to recognize the symptoms he suffered from. It was love, and it consumed entirely. His voice was wry, "Take care Webb. I'll see you when you're back in the states." "Yeah," Webb managed to muster up a half-hearted grin. "And I'll want my parking space back." Ted chuckled, "It'll be a cold day in hell." Webb leaned his head back into the uncomfortably pillow and stared at the ceiling. There was an ancient yellowish stain in one corner of the room that always caught his eyes. His mind began to drift and he felt the drugs kicking in. His eyes drifting shut, he saw her again, this time a warm smile lighting up her face as she clasped his hand. _"And I won't leave you behind." _ Had he not already been in love with her, he would have fallen right then. ***  
  
I also have a semi new Webb/Mac site with my fanfics. You can reach it at   



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